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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26589343">lost in the memory</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/uchiharvno/pseuds/uchiharvno'>uchiharvno</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>coffee beans [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Naruto</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, commission</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 13:15:16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,152</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26589343</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/uchiharvno/pseuds/uchiharvno</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"wanting was enough<br/>for me, it was enough<br/>to live for the hope of it all."</p>
<p>fourth part to Mistakes Like These</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Haruno Sakura &amp; Hatake Kakashi, Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke, Hatake Kakashi &amp; Uchiha Sasuke</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>coffee beans [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1606930</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>lost in the memory</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Birkastan2018/gifts">Birkastan2018</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>commission prompt: the same kakasakusasu au, but kakashi's pov</p>
<p>there’s an unpublished third chapter with the baby daddy reveal that you can only read <a href="https://ninasonlyfans.tumblr.com/day/2020/09/18/">here</a>.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>Sakura giggled. The sound immediately captured his full attention. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>It’s been four months since her explosive fight with her mother. Four months since she moved in with Kakashi. Four months of playing house and they’ve fallen into a routine. It’s one of those quiet nights and they stood side by side, Kakashi washing the dishes and Sakura drying them with a dishtowel. </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>Another giggle and he stopped what he was doing. “What is it?” </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>“It tickles a little,” she said, with a twinkle in her eyes and a glowing blush on her cheeks, “when she kicks.”</em>
</p>
<p>She<em>. Kakashi’s eyes flitted down to her swollen stomach. He swallowed thickly. He thought he might never get used to it, the idea that it’s his child that she is carrying in her womb. He must’ve been making a dumb face because Sakura giggled once more before delicate fingers wrapped around his wrist. </em></p>
<p>
  <em>She wiped the suds off his hands with her dishtowel and his throat tightened when she lifted the hem of her shirt over her bump, exposing familiar skin stretched over her round stomach. “She’s right… here.” </em>
</p>
<p><em>Kakashi breathed in deeply as she pressed the palm of his hand just under her belly button. His brows furrowed in concentration, then−there it was. There was a thud in his chest, in time with the movement under her skin. Overwhelmed with emotion, he looked up at Sakura. </em>Thank you<em>, he said, not with words but with the tears she wiped from the corners of his eyes. </em></p>
<p>Kakashi didn’t always love her. He wasn’t <em>sick</em>, she was young enough to be his daughter when they’d first met. But he didn’t know when it started. That he anticipated the days when Sasuke would come home with this girl in tow, that his heart sang every time she smiled at him, that he felt a pang in his chest whenever she was around his son. </p>
<p>“Sakura’s just a friend,” Sasuke would always say. But eventually, Sakura started coming over more often, staying the night more frequently. Until it was the three of them around the breakfast table, Sakura with her pink hair a tangled mess, wearing Sasuke’s shirt that’s too big on her like it’s the most natural thing in the world. She would tease him and he would mutter something rude and they would banter, but then she’d smile and his face would soften in a way Kakashi’s never seen before. </p>
<p>Sakura had an easy way about her, like an inviting open flame to an aimless moth. She had so much life in her. She was kind and compassionate, passionate and driven and smart. She had a smile that could light up a room and a presence that commanded attention. And she was completely oblivious to the effect that she had, on Sasuke, on <em>him</em>. </p>
<p>And that night, nearly six years ago now, it all just came to a head. She had been broken and devastated. She was in so much pain and he felt all of it as though it were his own. He had only wanted to make her stop hurting, but all it took was one touch and it all spiraled out of control. He held her tightly and kissed her fiercely and drove into her with an untamed need. </p>
<p>That’s how he finds himself here now, sitting on the coffee table and bracing himself as his daughter’s eyes bore into him with intense curiosity. Sasuke stands stiffly by his side and Sakura sits next to Ichika on the couch, looking at Kakashi with shame, uncertainty, and panic. </p>
<p>“Why does mama kiss onii-chan the way mommies and daddies do?” Ichika had asked, out of the blue, during a relatively uneventful dinner. </p>
<p>The question was bound to come sooner or later, though the three had been hoping for later. Now, Kakashi wracks his brain for the right words to explain that her conception had been a major lapse in judgement, that the night he’d spent with Sakura remains to be their gravest transgression, but even as a result of that mistake, she is anything but. The right words don’t come. He sighs. </p>
<p>“You see, Ichika-chan,” he starts slowly. “... there was a mix-up in the baby-making factory.”</p>
<p>Sakura grimaces and Sasuke groans, and Kakashi shoots each of them a look as if to say <em>you got anything better?</em> While Ichika only frowns slightly, squinting her eyes and scrunching her nose the way that she does when she’s deep in thought. “You mean like sex?” </p>
<p><em>Sex</em>, the four-year-old says casually. Father and son immediately turn their attention to her mother, Kakashi staggered and Sasuke scandalized. “You already told my baby sister about <em>sex</em>?!”</p>
<p>“Hey, she’s my daughter!” Sakura shouts back defensively. “Besides, it was… all scientific.”</p>
<p>“The point is,” Kakashi cut in sharply before the two could continue bickering the way that they do. Picking fights and arguing over the littlest thing as if it’s some deranged form of foreplay.</p>
<p>Taking a deep breath, he scoots closer to the edge of the table and leans forward to hold his daughter’s small, precious hands in his. “It’s complicated,” he says softly, “and we’ll talk about this more when you’re older. All that you need to know now is that you are loved, greatly, by everyone in this room.”</p>
<p>She remains quiet for a couple more seconds and he could see the gears turning in her head. And then she’s pouting, obviously unhappy with the vague non-answer he had given her. But she doesn’t push it any further, only mumbles an okay. It doesn’t take long before she’s yawning sleepily, so she kisses mama goodnight on the cheek and wraps her arms around papa’s neck. Then she reaches for onii-chan, her favorite person in the whole world, and asks him to tuck her into bed.</p>
<p>Kakashi watches his two children disappear up the stairs, leaving him alone with Sakura and the tension in the room and their complicated history. He sighs heavily and she pulls her feet up on his couch, fidgeting with her fingers. They avoid looking at each other.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>A week later, Sasuke asks Ichika for her mother’s hand in marriage (“do i call you onii-chan or papa, too?” “sasuke. no matter what, i’ll always be your sasuke.”) and Sakura marries him before she goes to med school.</p>
<p>It’s a beautiful garden wedding and Kakashi has his phone out like the proud father that he is. Standing below an arched trellis, Sasuke looks on with a soft smile on his face as Ichika walks down the aisle in a poofy white dress, throwing cherry blossom petals in her wake with little grace. She throws some directly in her father’s face when she passes him and he catches it on video when she stuffs a fistful down her brother’s pocket once she’s reached the end of the white aisle runner.</p>
<p>It garners laughter from the small crowd and Mebuki Haruno catches Kakashi’s eyes from across the aisle. She nods at him in greeting with a pleasant smile on her face. She had been the most furious with him for what he’d done to her daughter, but all the anger and resentment she’d harbored went out the window as soon as she met her grandchild. Now, Ichika has her grandparents wrapped around her little finger.</p>
<p>Kakashi grunts painfully as Ichika suddenly jumps onto his lap without ceremony. She climbs over him in an attempt to see over his shoulder and he hears her soft gasp when she sees her mother finally set foot on the aisle. He follows his daughter’s gaze and there she is… </p>
<p>Sakura walks down the aisle in her father’s arm. She’s heart-stoppingly beautiful, in a simple white gown with the barest makeup on her face, her pink hair done up in a messy bun that she did by herself, with her green eyes bright and shining with unshed tears. She steals the breath right out of his lungs. </p>
<p>Kakashi feels as though he’s bursting at the seams, flooded with so much emotion that he could barely distinguish one from the other−unbridled joy mixed with a suffocating ache. She smiles briefly at him and holds their daughter’s hand for a brief second before she’s standing before Sasuke. They look into each other’s eyes like they are the only people here. </p>
<p>Kakashi has never before seen a happier couple, never knew two people as deserving of each other as they are, never thought it possible to love so fully and to such a degree. There has never been a more perfect match than Sasuke and Sakura. He could see it now, the years to come. The pleasure and the struggle of it all, the full life that they would live together. They would have a home, warm and loving, and they would have children as smart and beautiful as they are.</p>
<p>And Ichika would be a part of this family. She would never be alone, even long after he’s gone… </p>
<p>It was his greatest mistake to have ever come between them. </p>
<p>Sakura isn’t the first thing he’s had to let go of, but he definitely wishes that she is the last.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>“Do you think our daughter is going to be okay?” Sakura asks, one hand on his shoulder and another in his. His own hand rests on the small of her back but they keep a safe distance between them. “You don’t think… this situation would fuck her up along the way?” </p>
<p>Kakashi chuckles lightly. “You married my son, didn’t you? If that one turned out mighty fine, I can’t imagine I could do worse with this one.” </p>
<p>She rolls her eyes, but he could feel her relax against him, the tension leaving her shoulders in a single exhale. “You’re a good dad, Kakashi,” she says, patting him on the shoulder just before she lets go of him to dance with her husband instead. </p>
<p>He watches her cut in between Sasuke and Mebuki, watches Sasuke wrap his arms around her waist and pull her flush against him the way Kakashi himself had wanted to, and he watches Sakura wrap her arms loosely around his neck and look into his eyes as if they hold the universe inside them. She kisses him and Kakashi looks away. </p>
<p>He spots Ichika gorging on cupcakes with her aunt Ino, so he decides to steal a moment to himself. He heads towards the parking lot, towards the pack of cigarettes he keeps stashed in his glove compartment since Sakura hates seeing them around their daughter. He puts a stick between his lips and he’s about to light it when he realizes his lighter’s out of fluid. </p>
<p>He realizes that he’s not alone when he hears heels clicking loudly on the sidewalk. He turns around and finds Tsunade Senju walking towards him. “Smoking is bad for you, you know?” she says, even as she holds a lighter up to his face. He cups a hand around his cigarette as she lights it. </p>
<p>“So is drinking,” he remarks off-handedly. Then he smirks, nearly in laughter, when he realizes that it isn’t a glass she’s holding but a whole bottle she’s swiped from the open bar. </p>
<p>Sakura <em>worships </em>this woman, her mentor. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t hold admiration in his heart for her, as well. She is renowned in the world of medicine, a goddess among doctors. Kakashi had gone out of his way to see one of her lectures once or twice. But Tsunade Senju is a woman of many vices and she looks too much like bad news and he thinks he should get back to the party, but−</p>
<p>“Are you okay?” she asks, unsympathetically but not unkindly. “That girl… I can’t imagine it would be so easy to let her go.”</p>
<p>He holds hot smoke in his lungs for a little longer, before breathing it out of his mouth as he says, with utmost sincerity, “I’m happy for them.”</p>
<p>Tsunade only nods. She raises her bottle in a toast and he knocks his knuckle against the glass: “To Sasuke and Sakura.”</p>
<p>Kakashi raises his cigarette to his lips but his mouth only hangs open in awe as he watches the other doctor throw her head back and down an entire bottle of whiskey. She swallows audibly and breathes heavily afterwards. Then she grins and he follows the plump line of her red lips. “I’m too drunk to drive. You gonna take me home or what?” </p>
<p>His brows shoot up in surprise. But he takes a second to look back and finds Sakura dancing with Ichika, swaying in time to the slow tune, the little girl’s head resting tiredly on her mother’s shoulder.</p>
<p>Kakashi takes one last puff from his cigarette before throwing it to the ground and stomping it out. He turns back to Tsunade, her eyes like whiskey looking up at him expectantly. </p>
<p>“Yes, ma’am.”</p>
<p>
  <em>.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>.</em>
</p>
<p>
  <strong> <em>fin.</em> </strong>
</p>
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